John Cochrane
Number of games in database: 767
Years covered: 1820 to 1874
Overall record: +449 -252 =62 (62.9%)*
* Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games
Based on games in the database; may be incomplete.
4 exhibition games, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

Ziggurat: <"The great chess men have generally been long lived and have preserved their faculties to the last. I remember well receiving a note from John Cochrane, a famous player, in London just before the tournament in Paris in 1878. He was then ninety years of age and said that he would like to explain to me some new ideas. He did so, and I was surprised to see a man of his advanced years write out from memory variations sixteen moves deep. The next day I read in the papers a notice of his death. I cannot imagine a happier way to die. It is so with almost all who devote their time to the game of chess. They live long and they retain mental vigor to the end of their days.">

keypusher: <I remember well receiving a note from John Cochrane, a famous player, in London just before the tournament in Paris in 1878. He was then ninety years of age and said that he would like to explain to me some new ideas.>

I think that Steinitz can be forgiven considering that this was an interview and he probably didn't know every birthyear of every chessplayer up to 1894. Cochrane was still 80 years old and Steinitz' enthusiasm justified.

There are a lot of factually wrong or at least strange claims from famous chessplayers (not even counting the more recent ones). Like Marshall calling Johannes Zukertort a former Worldchampion and the story of the "Five First Grandmasters" at St. Petersburg 1914.

So let's just correct that mistake and appreciate the fact that a strong and important master like John Cochrane was still in such a good shape shortly before he died at the age of 80 (in the 19th century!).

thomastonk: <Gottschalk> The game has been published in "The Chess Player's Chronicle", Vol. III, p19. The game score is incomplete, because there it is stated after 23.♕xa5: "AND BLACK DREW THE GAME, BY GIVING `` PERPETUAL CHECK.´´"

So, 23.. ♕d4+ has to be added, but then it's ambiguous. The easy solution is 24.♖f2 ♕d1+ 25.♖f1 ♕d4+. But also 24.♔h1 ♖xh2+ 25.♔xh2 ♖h8+ 26.♔g3 ♖g8+ should lead to a perpetual, but White's next move can be 27.♔h2 or 27.♔f3.

The easy solution is more probably, because otherwise, Staunton would have published the additional moves, I think.

The game has been played in London during Cochrane's visit from 1841 to 1843, and since the CPC appeared some time after April 27, 1842, the year is 1841 or 1842.

I couldn't find the game under the link you gave, because Cochrane's games are unavailable there. However, such collector databases often miss important information for such old games, which you can complete by using primary sources. Many useful links can be found for example here Calli's Game Collections or here http://www.chessarch.com/library/ma..., respectively.

I met Jay at the John G. White collection when I was finishing up my Pillsbury research and he was starting his research into games not found in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess Games. I had a 486 laptop at the time with Chess Base 3 and my Pillsbury game collection and I was going through the White collection scrapbooks looking for miscellaneous Pillsbury games. Jay was impressed with the technology and asked if I would be interested in creating a database of games from the hundreds of pages he had already photocopied. I spent that summer doing data-entry and then sent his photocopies back to him along with a print-out of the games and copy of the database. I suspect a large number of the games in his final database are the ones I entered into Chess Base years ago... I never utilized his discoveries (but I may have sent them to John Hilbert as part of a larger historical database when John was doing his Napier research). I'm happy to see Jay kept up on his research and that the games he found eventually made their way into public circulation.

Sally Simpson: Of course but for a trip to India just after the London to Edinburgh correspondence match started we would having been calling the Scotch Opening - The Cochrane Opening for it was he that suggested London play it in 1825.

London played it in the first game
Edinburgh played it in the third and fifth games.

At that time White did not always go first. For the duration of the match London had White pieces and Edinburgh the Black.
But Edinburgh had the move in 3 of these games.

So this is infact what Edinburgh saw when playing the Scotch gambit in the 2nd half of the 1820's.

Not that it makes much difference but it would be good to tell them they are infact looking at the wrong position next time some dip and their computer are trying to pull this masterpiece of creativity to shreds.

Chernev nails these sad people in 'Chess Companion' when he says some baseball spectators don't look at the majestic flight of a ball, they are too busy scribbling down stats and the batting average.

Made an error in my dates. The London - Edinburgh started in 1824 (Cochrane left London for India early 1825, that is where I stumbled).

OK one year out but considering I've seen and read the letters sent up by London for this match it was pretty clumsy of me.

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